[AU] two worlds, a lot of demons, and a new set of problems

[gavemea_45]

It's still hard to believe it's over; that the yellow-eyed demonic bastard they'd spent their whole lives hunting is finally dead.

Sam figures it'll sink in eventually. Given everything else -- right now he's still pretty numb.

He's also desperately tired, but that doesn't matter. There's something he needs to do, and he can't afford to delay.

He waits until they've settled in for the night, and then waits still longer. Once Dean's been asleep for half an hour, Sam picks up his messenger bag -- already stuffed with books and his computer -- and heads straight for the bar.

He orders black coffee and snags a table with a good view of both doors and the stairs, then pulls out the first of the old texts and starts to search through it.

There's work to do.

Comments

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Because I'm Canadian?" Waverly asks, blank.

[gavemea_45]

"Well, is it?" Dean tosses back at her. As he does, he rolls out of bed and reaches for the clothes he'd left draped over the back of the nearby chair.

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Do you think Canadians just carry around skulls?" she asks, gesturing with it at him. "You know, just in case we have to perform a monologue from Hamlet at the drop of a hat, or something? No."

The skull gazes at him, empty and disapproving. "And the revenants are demons... or demonic, anyway. They resurrect and have to get sent back to Hell by the Earp heir. It's a whole thing."

[gavemea_45]

"Stop waving that thing at me," Dean orders, before he pulls on his shirt. "This heir, that's you? Earp? That Earp?"

"Her older sister, actually," Sam puts in, watching Dean's preparations with dismay and resignation mixed. "Wynonna. And yes, that Earp. Evidently he moved to Canada after Arizona. It's his gun that she's using now. Peacemaker. You know, Dean, you don't have to --"

Dean wheels around to pin him with a stare. "Don't you even try it."

[totalitarstupetballs]

"But it's the reason Sam's coming to help," she says, ignoring the rest of the byplay and lifting the skull to look at it, before holding it at shoulder height and turning its face back towards Dean. "I need to find the rest of the body that goes with it."

[gavemea_45]

"You mean it's the reason we're coming to help," Dean informs her. "Sam, what the--"

"It's not a hunt," he protests. "More like hide and seek. You don't have to come, Dean, I just thought you'd want to know."

"You're damn right I want to know before you go off to another world chasing skeletons. Unless that's not really what you're chasin'."

Sam glares at him. "Stop it."

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Oh, there's also a witch," Waverly puts in, helpfully.

[gavemea_45]

Dean makes a strangled sound on hearing that and Sam gives up on talking his brother out of coming along in the same moment. "Witch? What witch?"

"Hopefully we won't be running across the witch," Sam tries. "But... you can probably see why I offered to help out. Bring your EMF meter, okay?"

Dean rolls his eyes at him and grabs his duffel bag. "Do not go anywhere until I get back," he commands them both, and stalks out to the Impala. Sam sighs and looks at Waverly.

[totalitarstupetballs]

She gives him an apologetic grimace. "Sorry?"

[gavemea_45]

"Not your fault," he assures her. "Dean's a little protective, is all."

How long has it been since Cold Oak, anyway? Too long and not long enough, not when every day is a clock ticking down against his brother's life.

"But he's a really good hunter. You could consider us a two-for-one package deal in this case."

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Okay, but let's try not to do too much hunting," she cautions. "Not without Wynonna."

Who may actually be still out with Doc, considering the time Waverly came in from. Which just makes her head hurt.

[gavemea_45]

"We're not planning on it," Sam assures her. "Looking for bones, that's the goal here. It's just a matter of being prepared in case anything goes sideways."

"Exactly," Dean agrees, having entered in time to hear this last.

[totalitarstupetballs]

Waverly sighs and lifts her hands – and the skull – in a shrug. "Okay," she agrees. "So are you both ready?"

[gavemea_45]

"Lead the way, sweetheart," Dean says, with an easy smile. Sam just sighs and reaches for the motel room door. "I got it. Then once we're in the bar again, you just reopen the door there and bring us on through."

[totalitarstupetballs]

She makes a face at the endearment, then goes through the door once Sam opens it. Waverly waits until both brothers are through and the door is closed, then reaches for the handle once more.

It opens onto another bar, this one closed for the daytime, stools stacked upside down on the counter, pool table empty. The large room is warm with dark wood and old glass; a cattle skull hangs about the register. On the wall is a carved wooden sign proclaiming: "Drink where Wyatt Earp did!"

Waverly holds the door open for the brothers, gesturing them inside. "Gentlemen, welcome to Purgatory."

[gavemea_45]

“Hell of a place,” Dean drawls. He studies the bar with interest before glancing at Sam. “So to speak.”

Sam scowls at him. “Seriously?”

[totalitarstupetballs]

Waverly gives him a flat glance, then leads the way into Shorty's. "So this..."

She heads over to the old piano and plays a few notes before turning back to Sam. "Is where I found our friend, here."

[gavemea_45]

"Right." Sam glances at Dean. "Waverly found Yorick here with a note from - you said your uncle, right? - her uncle calling her 'the keeper of the bones.'"

"What the fuck," is Dean's opinion. "Yeah, I know," Sam says. "Figure that means there's more around here somewhere, and it'd be a good idea to figure out why before anything goes wrong."

For a moment, mischief flickers in Dean's eyes as he turns to Waverly. "Sounds like your family's as interesting as ours."

[totalitarstupetballs]

"That's one word for it," Waverly agrees, though a loyal streak in her wants to argue the way he says it, like interesting is just another word for screwed.

Which might be what Wynonna thinks, but she knows they're so much more.

She heads to the table where she'd worked out the poem earlier and picks up the note that had been left in the skull, then returns to hand it to Sam. Waverly, darling, it begins:

You are now the Keeper of the Bones.
Guard this and tell no one but the Blacksmith.
You're the only one I can trust.
Love, Uncle Curtis.

[gavemea_45]

"Huh." Sam studies it carefully, then hands it over to Dean so he can read it too.

"Any idea when he would have written this?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

She shakes her head. "He was getting worried, a few weeks before he was killed," she tells them. "It was getting closer to Wynonna's birthday. He knew it was all going to start happening again. So, maybe then?"

[gavemea_45]

"And there's no one else you're supposed to trust around here?" Dean wants to know. It's a good question, Sam thinks. "Why not?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

She gazes at the note, the familiar writing. "Uncle Curtis was the only one who believed in the curse," she murmurs, almost more to herself than to them.

"He was the one who encouraged me to research, he paid for all of my online classes to learn dead languages. He knew as much about the curse as anyone, but even he didn't know who might be a revenant and who wasn't."

[gavemea_45]

"You guys have that many revenants runnin' around?" Disbelief rings through Dean's words. Sam can't say he blames him.

"Look, we didn't have much of a chance to explain," he starts, a little defensive. "Waverly, I'll scan the piano and the skull, just in case. Set it on the top of the piano, there. Maybe you can bring Dean up to speed?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Daddy didn't kill many when he was the heir," Waverly says, a little defensive and a lot wry. "Most of the seventy-seven were still here, even before Wynonna came of age."

She sets the skull on top of the piano as requested and turns back to Dean. "Do you know anything about the Earp curse?"